28 June 2007

The Dark Knight

The viral marketing campaign of the spring has to be Warner Brothers campaign for The Dark Knight.

The campaign launched with a series of election posters for the character Harvey Dent erected in selected cities. A teaser website (http://www.ibelieveinharveydent.com/) featuring the election poster was launched online.

By the weekend there were reports of the posters being defaced with the words I believe in Harvey Dent too! HAHAHA. The same words were chalked on the pavement outside comic book stores who also found defaced joker cards hidden amongst their stock.

Fans quickly found the website http://www.ibeliveinharveydenttoo.com. By this stage is was no surprise that the poster had been jokerised but very quickly it began to disintegrate pixel by pixel to reveal the first glimpse of the new Joker. Visitors were encouraged to submit their email addresses and were then sent a link and X&Y coordinates which would tantalizingly remove another single pixel.

Within hours the campaign had created a frenzy of discussion amongst film buffs, comic book and superhero fans in forums across the web. Warner Brothers have collected thousands of email addresses and are sure to have guaranteed a box office record breaking opening.